


A Brief Analysis of Auden's 'Funeral Blues'.

by narquoise



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-05-12
Packaged: 2017-12-11 16:18:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/800681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narquoise/pseuds/narquoise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>''She', he scribbled. It's 'she'.'</p><p>Sherlock is left to cope with the Molly's death all on his own, even with all the matter of friends and family at the ready.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Brief Analysis of Auden's 'Funeral Blues'.

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't read or had a proper listen to Funeral Blues, I'd suggest you start here. ;)  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bphcsW24Ue8
> 
> This was just a bit of idle drabble. It's largely incomplete. Comments and suggestions are much appreciated, though. :)

She'd always been fond of Auden. There were nights he would wake up from a shallow few minutes of sleep to find her perusing a collection of his works. She would sigh, and smile, and bite her lip as if to contain some discomfort, and when she was finally worn out and ready to turn in, she would close the book gently and set it at the foot of the bedside table. He'd feel her ease back into the comfort of their sheets, careful to avoid touching him knowing he roused easily at contact when asleep. He pretended to be asleep then, careful to avoid touching her knowing she would probably ask if he wasn't sleeping properly again. He didn't touch or talk to her until they were both fully awake the next morning.

In his curiosity, he gingerly picked up the book and read through the contents himself. He would admit, if his mouth wasn't parched and if he would finally muster up the resolve to stand up and get a glass of water from the kitchen, that he wasn't too acquainted with writing of the expressive kind.

From the nights he'd seen her near-grimace at her book, he took note of the level of thickness of the pages to the left and right. It was called 'Funeral Blues', and it was the first time that he'd encountered Auden's mournful tone. He had expected it to be florid. He needed to read more.

He was scribbling more marginalia on (her pristine copy) his vandalised copy with a small, stubby pencil too cumbersome to handle.

Poetry had never been of great interest to him. Scores of great writers and storytellers— classical to contemporary— lay untouched on great shelves of libraries, and, if they ever had the pleasure, were used only to decipher clues his suspects left behind. All the things others couldn't see, he saw, but upon reaching it, he never thought of or bothered with its hermeneutics. He never once thought that a work could faze him. Now this persona was in his head and kept him awake for days.

'She', he scribbled. It's 'she'.

They cleared the desk out of the main room to make room for her coffin. The desk had to be moved to the spare flat for the meantime, although it was only done with the terrible effort of three trying to lug it down more than ten excruciating steps. With the clearing-off of the décor, the flat lacked a personality of its own, almost as if it were in mourning as well. He had never seen it so clean and so unrecognisable. It disgusted him.

Mourners murmured on, few sadly spreading how she died and how much of a good woman she was. It all unsettled him, this farce. He looked aside as if to make some snide comment about the scenery, or perhaps to lighten the mood with a jocular quip, but the enduring silence had warned him against speaking to air. Air had no ears.

He had survived the slew of pats the funeral-goers lavished on him and several more unnecessary commiserations, and felt nothing else but overwhelming need to declare noli me tangere in the very literal sense. He set off for the kitchen to make himself something strong to drink.

He expected a small reprimand for spilling some of the whisky on their counter. The onlookers (John, Mary) couldn't hold him back from filling the rocks glass to the brim, and neither could they hold him back from quaffing near half the glass in one gulp. Instead, they looked on mournfully as if there were a second coffin in the room. John couldn't look; Mary held his hand all throughout.

In the corner of his eye, he could make out the form of her. The shape of her face, her nose, eyes, and mouth, her soft brown hair. She shook her head disappointedly and he asked, "Why?" and she didn't respond. He wanted so desperately to feel her hands atop his again. He couldn't turn to face her—why would he? How could he? When she held his gaze so fixated onto the glass below with a singular cube of ice floating in a sea of whisky.

He flipped, quickly, to the first page of the book as if to find any notes she might have left behind.

  _I would suggest_ 'If I Could Tell You'. _It's a bit therapeutic._

The vicar's service was nothing out of the ordinary, but the notes he had prepared, clutched in his hand within the pages of her book, were probably eulogy enough for her.  With the last gulp of whisky, he set off to stand in front of the side of her coffin, and he opened the book, only to have a note slip out and fall to the floor.

_You didn't really think I'd say goodbye without saying_ 'I love you' _now, did you?_  


And with that, he began, raising the book up for them to vaguely see.

"She had always been fond of Auden. She... She'd always been fond of Auden. There were nights I would wake up from a shallow few minutes of sleep to find her perusing a collection of his works. She would sigh, and smile, and bite her lip as if to contain some discomfort, and when she was finally worn out and ready to turn in, she would close the book gently and set it at the foot of the bedside table. I'd feel her ease back into the comfort of the sheets. I know she had been careful to avoid touching me. I rouse easily at any contact when I am asleep. Even if I was awake then, sleep was a wonderful mask. I would wake up to see her in the morning. And now I can't."


End file.
